I am having a weird problem with my instrument panel. As I am driving the speedometer and tach. with just start bouncing wildly up and down and at the same time the all of the interior lights, as well as the odometer will rapidly flash. The front headlights will flicker as well. The parking break light and ABS light will both flash on and off once then the door "ding" will sound the radio will turn off briefly.....then everything will go back to normal. Sometimes not for long maybe a mile or two then it starts all over again... I have taken it in to a mechanic and he checked some connections wiggled a few wires but found nothing. Grounding problem? The transmission is acting weird also and it seems to have lost its get- up-and-go power but I'm not sure if that is related to the instrument panel problem. Could someone shed some light on this?

 

Welcome to DF
Have you had any work done on the van? From what I am reading you may have a pinched wire some where or bad ground.

 

I have put a new alternator in hoping that would fix it but there was no change then about a month later took it in and the mechanic said the catalytic converter needed to be replaced, something about a oxygen sensor. All of this has been done in the effort to fix this issue. It has gradually gotten worse over the past 4 months so that now it freaks out every time the van is running. Even at idle it happens. but strangely enough it goes really wild when you let off the accelerator and a few times the engine actually died when stopping at a light. I will look around for any signs of a pinched wire and try to locate the grounding points.

 

Try removing the fan belt and see what happens.

 

I will give that a try thanks!!